Brand Bowl is back on Boston.com

Back for the fourth year in a row, Brand Bowl keeps score of what everyone’s really concerned with during the Super Bowl – the ads. The project was developed in 2010 by Mullen and Radian 6, and now, Boston.com is setting out with Pointslocal to bring the Internet a way to finally settle the debate about which is funnier: VW or Doritos.

Using technology developed by Pointslocal that measures sentiment, Brand Bowl 2013 will rank the most popular Super Bowl ads based on online chatter. It’s a real-time analysis of what the Twittersphere thinks of commercials as they run during the big game.

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How does it work?

It’s easy, really. We input many, many keywords about the brands set to air ads into our program, as well as words that imply positive or negative opinions.

First, we count all the tweets about a brand.

Then, we analyze the sentiment of the tweets and assign that ad a score using a simple formula:

We only collect data during the time ads start to air for the Super Bowl, and we shut it down one hour after, so post-game analysis and next-day recaps don’t influence the scores.

At the end, tallies will be posted before you pass out from all that seven-layer bean dip. Visit Boston.com on Sunday to participate, look for the #brandbowl hashtag on Twitter, and join the conversation to influence the vote.